A Quote by Thomas Mallon
I like writing dialog but don't think I'd be much good at a screenplay. I once had to write a treatment for a novel of mine - a condition of its being optioned by a movie producer - and I turned out something pretty lackluster. So my inclination would be to stay out of the way of an experienced screenwriter.
Related Quotes
Once, I optioned a novel and tried to do a screenplay on it, which was great fun, but I was too respectful. I was only 100 pages into the novel and I had about 90 pages of movie script going. I realized I had a lot to learn.
I would like to write a novel, or at least try to write one, although my motives are not entirely pure. For one thing, I get asked about writing novels so much that I feel guilty about never having written one. And although I have no strong desire to write a novel, I would hate not to try. That would just be silly. On the other hand, I hate the idea of slogging through something that turns out to be not good.
I set out to write a screenplay but, since my early 20s, had dreamed of writing a novel.
I can pick up a screenplay and flip through the pages. If all I see is dialog, dialog, dialog, I won't even read it. I don't care how good the dialog is - it's a moving picture. It has to move all the time... It's not the stage. A movie audience doesn't have the patience to sit and learn a lesson. Their eyes need to be dazzled. The writer is the most important element in the entire film because if it ain't on the page it ain't going to be on the screen.
Once I was in college, I was actually trying to write a comedy screenplay and I wrote basically the worst movie ever and just threw it away and never showed anybody. Everyone needs to get that first bad screenplay out of your system before you start writing other stuff.
I'm really proud of Twilight. I think it's a good movie. It was hard to do, and I think it turned out pretty good. But I don't take much credit for it. So when you show up at these places, and there's literally like a thousand girls and they're all screaming your name, you're like, why? You don't feel like you deserve it.
I'm probably, if I might, if I stray I might write, go into screenplay or do something in film. Something like that but I think I'm pretty much going to stick to what I'm good at.
When I started writing short stories, I thought I was writing a novel. I had like 60 or 70 pages. And what I realized was that I don't write inner monologue. I don't want to talk about what somebody is thinking or feeling. I wanted to try to show it in an interesting way. And so what I realized was that I was really writing a screenplay.
When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. That's what writing a screenplay is.
When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. Thats what writing a screenplay is.
About a year ago I got really exhausted from reading bad scripts and I know that I am a writer and that I have stories to tell, so I thought, 'Let's do this!' So I'm co-writing a screenplay now with another screenwriter and loving it. Absolutely loving it. And I would like to be the producer on the project and of course the lead is me.
Movies cost so much that studios really try to impose their personality over yours. A lot of times, you can get swallowed up in that and end up making movies that are indistinguishable from anybody else's. One of the things I've always tried to do is to inject myself as much as possible into the movie, so I feel like it's mine. But that also comes from what you choose to do and what you choose not to do. There are certain projects I could have said yes to, and I know exactly how they would have turned out: exactly the way they turned out when someone else did them.
I had to take a big risk by writing my young adult book series 'The A Circuit' and putting myself out there in that way. I don't consider myself a good writer, so I had to rely on a co-writer. Still, I knew that people would judge me and my writing. I am really proud of the way the series turned out.
I would say, A, you can't really teach anyone how to write good characters, because it's something you have to teach yourself or already have innately in you as a storyteller, and, B, coming up with a good screenplay is a very, very small fraction of what it takes to be a good screenwriter.
I was pretty much seen as a basketball player coming out of high school. Football was my second love, but luckily, I turned out to be pretty good. Something just drew me to football; besides, I ended up being too short for my position in basketball.
I just started trying to figure out how to write [something] which was unlike anything anybody had ever seen, and once I felt like I had figured that out I tried to figure out what kind of book I could write that would be unlike anything anybody had ever seen. When I started writing A Million Little Pieces I felt like it was the right story with the style I had been looking for, and I just kept going.
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